I took my bike into one of my lbs when I got a star fangled washer stuck in the headset..
Owner of shop points at my forks… “ooooh…. You’ve got one of those new fangled maxles, not seen those before”
Then unbelievably he didn’t know how to undo the maxle.

I was in my LBS the other day and the guy behind the counter was practically shouting at a customer for asking what size bike he needed!
“Smacks of someone coming in the shop to find out what they need then going away and buying online” or something… “You wouldn’t buy a suit by saying ‘what size am I?’!”.
Oddly the customer didn’t walk out, but defended himself by saying he came in to look at the bikes last week.
I wuz stunned.

customer: “if I wanted to change to 2×10, what components will be ok and what will need to be new”
LBS: “you’ll need a whole new drivetrain”
customer: “oh ok”
LBS: “well you might be able to keep your cranks, the rest will need to change”
customer: “oh ok. that’s good as my cranks aren’t very old.”
LBS: “well, you might need to change them. yeah, you’d be better off changing the whole lot”
customer: “oh ok. I’ll probably just wait for everything to wear out then.”

Not a quote, but I remembered this from the last shop I worked in. I was getting a gentleman to try a few different hybrids, letting him sit on them in the shop to see what size and style he felt most comfortable on.

He sat on a Giant Escape and promptly pissed himself.

Fortunately he bought that one, I don’t think I could have brought myself to try and sell it to someone else.

I took my bike into one of my lbs when I got a star fangled washer stuck in the headset..
Owner of shop points at my forks… “ooooh…. You’ve got one of those new fangled maxles, not seen those before”
Then unbelievably he didn’t know how to undo the maxle

You say that, but when I picked up my road bike after having a new groupset fitted and new wheels I spent an age in the dark trying to undo the quick release so I could put the bike in my car.
Lots of WTF! Took a while to work out that although it looked like normal QR, you had to pull the lever towards you and unwind it, then you could put the lever in any position you want. Of course DT Swiss owners will be familiar with this 😳

cloudnine – Member
I took my bike into one of my lbs when I got a star fangled washer stuck in the headset..
Owner of shop points at my forks… “ooooh…. You’ve got one of those new fangled maxles, not seen those before”
Then unbelievably he didn’t know how to undo the maxle.

What’s more unbelievable is that you got the star fangled washer stuck and then didn’t realise that the way to remove it would involve “drifting” it out with a hammer .

munrobiker – Member
Not a quote, but I remembered this from the last shop I worked in. I was getting a gentleman to try a few different hybrids, letting him sit on them in the shop to see what size and style he felt most comfortable on.

He sat on a Giant Escape and promptly pissed himself.

Fortunately he bought that one, I don’t think I could have brought myself to try and sell it to someone else.

Not quite the same but I was getting a childs bike off the shelf for a young boy to sit on . His family were all with him and when I lifted the bike off the shelf I farted loudly . Nobody said anything so I just carried on as though nothing had happened , quite surreal really .

When I first got into Mtb and reading up on different bikes and bike components I went along to Rock and Road in Bridge of Allan. Attempting to appear knowable I ask to see their Shrek Remedy they had for sale. The salesman didn’t even blink an eye and carried on being very helpfull.